Interview results about the barriers

Interviewees were asked open-ended questions about the barriers they face when teaching CT. Below is a list of barriers with reasoning and argumentation from the interviewees. Fo-cusing on one barrier at a time is not unambiguous as barriers often overlap and might have causal relationships.

32 4.3.1 Change resistance

Change resistance was mentioned as a barrier, especially for the older teachers (FIN5, FIN8, GER8, GER9), affecting how CT is taught and affected students’ attitudes and attitudes to-wards CT. FIN2 said teachers are the most challenging group to teach something new to.

Many teachers do not have the skills to teach CT, but they also experience that CT and ICT are comparable to magic and cannot be mastered. It is hard to motivate teachers to learn a new skill if they have had a 30-year professional career and want to do everything the way they have done before

4.3.2 Lack of teacher education

“Lack of teacher education” -barrier can be seen as a reason for or a result of change re-sistance. Many interviewees hoped for quality educational material for teachers and educa-tional paths to gain self-esteem in a field that is experienced to be complicated by many (FIN3, FIN9, FIN10, GER8, GER9, EST1, EST2, GRE3). FIN3 said that many educational and professional development possibilities are available, but teachers do not attend them.

Teachers that attend CT and ICT courses are the ones already savvy in CT and technology.

The teachers that would benefit from the courses do not attend because they feel it is too difficult.

4.3.3 Teacher motivation

“Teacher motivation” -barrier was mentioned only by Finnish interviewees (FIN6, FIN8, FIN9). This barrier is closely related to change resistance and could be interpreted as the same barrier. FIN6 said that although CS is required in the Finnish curriculum, there are no clear guidelines or material to carry this out. Teachers are not “forced” to teach anything CT-related, as there is no measurement or public benchmark.

4.3.4 Student motivation

EST4 said that students do not recognize the importance of programming skills and the de-velopment of logical thinking. CS skills are experienced as “nerdy,” and the application of

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basic CT is not clear (FIN8). FIN9 said that the few classes dedicated to CT and other CS skills are too few and too far apart to create understandable entities for students.

4.3.5 Heterogenous student skills

A few middle and high school teachers were involved in the study, and they experienced the heterogeneous skill levels of students as a significant barrier. The group sizes are often more prominent in higher levels, and individual instruction is more difficult in bigger groups. FIN7 compared this to if some primary schools allowed illiterate students to proceed to middle school. That situation would overwhelm teachers, but that is now the case in CS skills. There are national and regional CS guidelines, but they are not followed in every school. If the path is broken at one point, it will be broken up till high school.

4.3.6 Lack of time

“Lack of time”-barrier was mentioned most often. Interviewees felt that the curriculum is too tight to experiment with new topics.

“There is too little time in the curriculum. ICT used to be taught in math class, but there is now less time for math in the current curriculum, but the material is still the same." (FIN1) GRE6 and EST6 said that the CT activities are based on an optional level, not allocated time.

If CT is taught more, other subjects have to be rushed forward.

German interviewees (GER1, GER2, GER3, GER10, GER11) said they do not have time to instruct students in ICT classes. A helpful hint in math class might take 10 seconds, but ICT problems take a lot more time to solve. Lack of time was also given as a reason for not attending courses or other training.

Lack of time also means that teachers do not have time to develop new exercises or activities.

Many teachers are overworked and do not have time to enhance their professional skills (EST3).

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One class is only 45 minutes long. Getting the class started, bringing laptops from storage, booting them, waiting for possible installations, and solving wifi- and login problems easily takes 1/3 of the whole class. There has to be time for saving the activities and returning the computers to the storage. In the worst case, there are only 20 minutes of effective time for activities. (GRE2)

4.3.7 No allocated subject

“No allocated subject” -barrier is similar to lack of time and lack of material. It was also suggested as a solution for many other barriers. If CS had a designated subject with its allo-cated time and grading, most of the barriers would be solved at least partly. (EST6, EST9, FIN1, GER8, GER9) As long as it is not an individual subject but is supposed to be integrated into other subjects, the quality depends on the teachers' activity and the support from the government, region, school, and other teachers. If CS had a designated subject, publishers would rush to provide material for teachers. Now the lack of curricular integrity makes cre-ating material difficult.

4.3.8 Lack of staff

German teachers mentioned the lack of staff and made teaching new material more difficult (GER10 and GER11). Lack of teachers and assistants makes group sizes larger, which results in more restless groups, making individual instruction very difficult. Individual guidance is crucial in the early stages of learning new skills. CT and ICT often require several minutes of attention for every student, and giving enough attention is a struggle with large groups.

4.3.9 Group sizes

Group sizes were mentioned several times (EST3, EST5, FIN7, GRE5). FIN7 said, “Students cannot be individually educated if there are 30 students and one teacher.” Classes are often divided into craft subjects like music and art classes. CS should be seen as a similar subject, where a teacher has to attend to one student for some time.

35 4.3.10 Lack of material

Many interviewees mentioned the lack of quality material, study path, and continuum of skill development in later grades. “CS is required in the curriculum, but no clear guidelines or material is given,” FIN6 explains. GER10 and GER11 say they do not have designated books, apps, or other material. Teachers use what they have found or created themselves.

Many teachers feel they have been left alone in this matter. EST6 said, “We need workbooks and a manual for the teacher to study computer science. Teachers need to develop their al-gorithmic thinking skills: understanding what an algorithm is, the main types of algorithms, cycles, and graphs. We would need material in a game form for elementary grades - prepa-ration for studying the basics of programming in a primary school”.

4.3.11 Lack of resources

Some interviewees said they lack the devices altogether, others complained about outdated machines or the variety of devices (EST1, EST2, EST5, EST6, FIN1, FIN2, FIN3, GRE6, GER9, GER10, GRE8, GRE9). A common complaint was also that there are no devices in classrooms and they have to be fetched at the beginning of the class. Picking up computers consumes the limited time reserved for the class. Outdated equipment requires more time for every task and should be maintained, but there is not always anybody to take care of that.

The procurement process is not involving teachers enough. Optimal devices and software are not always bought and cannot be replaced after procurement.